Written evidence submitted by NASUWT

The NASUWT’s submission sets out the Union's views on the main issues identified by the Committee in the terms of reference for the Inquiry. The NASUWT's evidence is informed directly by serving teacher and headteacher members and also by the work of its representative committees and consultative structures, made up of practising teachers and school leaders working in the education system.

The NASUWT is the teachers’ union.

For further information, parliamentarians may contact:

Ms Chris Keates

General Secretary

chris.keates@mail.nasuwt.org.uk

www.nasuwt.org.uk

Executive Summary

1. The life chances of all young children depend to a critical extent on their ability to access high-quality early education. However, Government policy is serving to undermine the capacity of the sector to meet the needs of young children facing material deprivation and disadvantage.

2. The marginalisation of maintained settings as a result of funding-policy changes continues to undermine the most effective forms of provision across the early years sector.

3. The differential status accorded to teachers of early years teaching in comparison with other holders of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) introduced by the Department for Education (DfE) reflects a profound misunderstanding of the critical importance of coherent workforce strategies in supporting the ability of the sector to secure children’s wellbeing and promote their life chances.

4. Research continues to emphasise the foundational nature of language and communications skills in the educational and social development of young children. However, it is essential that reforms to early years assessment frameworks ensure that these areas of learning are supported in the context of a holistic, broad and balanced curriculum.

5. The relationship between poverty in the early years of life and impaired wellbeing and future life chances is well established. It is for this reason that the implications of the Government’s social and economic policy agenda on rates of child poverty continue to give rise to legitimate grounds for concern.

6. Levels of child poverty and deprivation remain at unacceptable levels and are set to increase further without changes in the direction of Government policy. The introduction of Universal Credit is likely to exacerbate rather than tackle the poverty faced by many young children, further undermining their wellbeing and life chances.

7. Government approaches to supporting the multi-agency working necessary to enhance life chances remain inadequate and require significant reform.

Background and context

1. The NASUWT welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee Inquiry into the life chances of young children.

2. The Committee has identified three main areas of focus for its Inquiry, namely:

• the role of quality early years education in determining life chances and securing social justice;
• the importance of communication skills and language development; and
• the importance of support for parents and families and integration in prevention and early integration.

3. Each of these areas is individually complex. The NASUWT’s submission, therefore, seeks to draw the Committee’s attention to the most critical considerations in these areas within the confines of the word limit for written evidence to Select Committees. The Union would, therefore, welcome the opportunity to expand on the points raised in its submission in oral evidence to the Committee.

The role of quality early years education in determining life chances and securing social justice

4. The life chances of all young children depend to a critical extent on their ability to access high-quality early education. The establishment of effective funding arrangements to support the statutory entitlement to early education, the quality of provision in early years settings and the securing in practice of the right of young children to benefit from an appropriate early learning offer must all, therefore, be regarded as critical public policy priorities. The importance of effective early learning is emphasised still further by its positive impact on the wellbeing and life chances of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable young children in society.

5. This understanding of the foundations of effective early years policy and practice invites reflection on the implications for children and young people of current Government policy. The NASUWT is clear that objective assessment of the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) early years policy agenda demonstrates that its effect has been, and will continue to be, to undermine efforts not only to enhance the life chances of all young children but also to ensure that the early education sector plays the fullest role possible in removing the barriers to achievement that deprivation and other forms of social vulnerability can create.

6. Ensuring that all children can gain access to their educational entitlements also requires ensuring that the needs of young children with special educational needs and disabilities are identified and addressed effectively. More broadly, policy strategies in this respect need to take account of the focus on enhancing life chances set out in the Government’s Integrated Communities strategy.[1]

7. Specific concerns can be identified concerning the likely impact of current policy on the ability of the early education sector to sustain high-quality provision. Research undertaken on behalf of the Government by the Effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project (EPPSE 3-16+)[2] and evidence obtained from the Millennium Cohort Study[3] have established that children make the best progress in early years settings that have highly qualified and trained staff, particularly those settings that deploy appropriately qualified teachers. The Committee will note that the DfE has directly recognised the particular value of maintained settings in securing high-quality provision.[4]

8. The NASUWT, therefore, remains deeply concerned by the implications of the unnecessary and damaging reductions in investment in the early years sector that have been taken forward since May 2010, particularly in relation to the Sure Start Children’s Centre (SSCC) programme. Between 2010/11 and 2014/15, annual investment in the sector fell from £1.2 billion to £740 million. Over 700 Children's Centres, explicitly focused on meeting the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable young children and their families, ceased operation during this period.

9. However, while emphasising the particular benefits of maintained early years settings, the NASUWT recognises that patterns of provision that include a significant portion of such settings are not currently established in every local authority area. As a result, many children are only able to access their entitlements in settings owned and managed by private, voluntary or independent (PVI) providers. It is recognised that such circumstances are likely to prevail in many communities for the foreseeable future.

10.         It is evident that not only are the general levels of training, skills and working conditions of staff in PVI settings lower than those in the maintained sector, but also that very few of these settings employ qualified teachers. These problems are compounded by the inadequate levels of qualified teacher input that many PVI settings are able to receive from local authorities as a result of ongoing constraints on the resources available to them to undertake these functions. The combination of low pay, low skills and lack of qualified teacher input in the PVI sector means that children receiving their early education entitlement in such settings are at a considerable disadvantage in comparison with their peers in better managed and resourced settings within the maintained sector.

11.         The NASUWT, therefore, remains concerned that the Government’s commitment to extending access to early education is being secured in practice through further expansion of the PVI sector at the expense of provision in maintained settings. Current funding arrangements establish a de facto presumption against maintained provision, increasing the likelihood that, over time, expansion of the early education entitlement will undermine the sustainability of high-quality provision in the maintained sector. It will also adversely affect the ability of local authorities to provide specialist support to PVI providers.

12.         The Committee will be aware that the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP), introduced in April 2015, provides some additional funding for providers based on levels of deprivation among the children they serve. The NASUWT believes that, in this respect, the EYPP reflects an essential principle of any equitable funding system and that additional resources should be allocated to those settings serving relatively large proportions of young children facing relative material deprivation and disadvantage. However, the EYPP is, in many vital respects, unfit for purpose. Specific issues in this regard include the relatively low level of additional funding associated with the EYPP, currently set at a maximum of £302 per annum, and the DfE’s ongoing failure to hold providers to effective account for the way in which this money is spent. Without such accountability, no effective mechanism is in place to ensure that the EYPP is allocated to the deprivation-related purposes for which it is intended.[5]

13.         Scheduled changes to the benefits system, most notably the replacement of a range of existing benefits with Universal Credit, will change the way in which deprivation and, therefore, EYPP eligibility is calculated. It would be highly inequitable for settings to be subject to reductions in EYPP funding merely as a result of changes to the way in which deprivation indicators are constructed. The NASUWT continues to call on the DfE to ensure that sufficient protections are in place to ensure that no setting is subject to a financial detriment on this basis.

14.         Issues related to the qualifications and status of the workforce are also critical to the quality and equity of provision. The recommendations of the DfE-commissioned Nutbrown Review on the early years workforce were unequivocal that the Government should ensure that approaches to workforce development within the early years sector should centre on the critical role played by qualified teachers in securing high-quality early learning experiences for young children.[6]

15.   Accordingly, the Review recommended that teachers in the early years sector should continue to be required to possess Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), follow courses of initial teacher training (ITT) structured on the same basis as for all other teachers, and benefit from all the rights and entitlements associated with QTS, including the right to access the statutory induction process.

16.   It was, therefore, a matter of considerable regret that the DfE decided to set aside this recommendation and to develop an alternative approach based upon a distinct Early Years Teacher role, different in many important respects from that of teachers with QTS.

17.   The Committee’s attention is drawn to the concerns expressed publicly by Professor Nutbrown in this regard and her specific reservations concerning the denigration of the status of teachers working in the early education sector that inevitably follow from differential status between teachers in the early years and all other teachers.[7] For example, in the context of primary schools that serve pupils aged between 4 and 11, wholly unacceptable situations now arise in which an Early Years Teacher is permitted to teach a reception class but is not regarded as a qualified teacher for the purposes of teaching pupils of any other age within the school.

18.   It is imperative that as a minimum expectation, the DfE revisits its policy in this area and ensures that QTS is established as a universal standard across the early education sector and all other sectors where qualified teachers are employed.

The importance of communication skills and language development

19.   As the Committee will be aware, the fundamental importance of communication skills and language development to the progress and achievement of young children was confirmed in the Government-commissioned Field Review into young children’s wellbeing.[8] Research continues to emphasise the foundational nature of these areas of educational development.[9]

20.   The Field Review placed particular stress on the impact of children's family and material circumstances on their development of early language and communication skills. These dimensions of children's experiences are addressed elsewhere in this submission. However, as noted above, it is not disputed that young children's experiences of early learning within dedicated settings have a significant impact on their wellbeing and future life chances. The critical contribution that such settings can make in this regard was highlighted in Ofsted's recent review of practice in the early years.[10]

21.   In addition to the relationship between the composition of the workforce, the nature of settings and the quality of provision discussed elsewhere in this submission, the curricular and assessment frameworks within which settings operate are critical considerations in this respect.

22.   The curricular framework in the early years is founded on the statutory provisions of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), while assessment is undertaken through the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). While the NASUWT recognises that the EYFSP was reformed in 2012 to reflect the recommendations arising from Dame Claire Tickell’s Review of the EYFS, its use in practice remains highly problematic.[11]

23.   Nevertheless, while recognising the importance of language and communication development, the Tickell Review also emphasised the need for young children to benefit from a broad and balanced learning offer that places the acquisition of skills and knowledge in this area into an appropriate context and that values educational and social development in other learning domains.

24.   The EYFSP was designed originally to be a holistic and development-focused way of assessing the progress and achievement of young learners. However, the assessment outcomes generated by the EYFSP are increasingly used for high-stakes accountability purposes and place disproportionate emphasis on a narrow range of learning outcomes. As a result, risks are created of a narrowly conceptualised understanding of language and communication development driving practice in early years settings.

25.   In the context of its consultation on primary assessment, undertaken in 2017, the DfE stressed the need to sustain work to narrow the learning gap in reading between children from disadvantaged households and their peers, and the importance of early vocabulary development in this context. The NASUWT recognises these important priorities and acknowledges to this end that it is legitimate for the Government to keep the effectiveness of statutory curricular frameworks under review.

26.   However, the NASUWT continues to have some reservations about the DfE seeking to secure these outcomes through amendments to the EYFSP, specifically the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) specified by the EYFS. Such an approach, in effect, may involve attempting to secure curricular outcomes through amendments to assessment requirements.

27.   Statutory curricular frameworks in England have been based on the principle that learning experiences should be curriculum-led and should not be driven by the imperatives of assessment.[12]  The NASUWT notes that the need to avoid assessment-led teaching was a core design aim of the current iteration of the National Curriculum.[13] This feature of effective curricular provision is particularly important in respect of early learning and development, as emphasised expressly in the outcomes of the Tickell Review.[14]

28.   It is welcome that the DfE has indicated its willingness to address many of the NASUWT’s broader concerns about the manageability of the EYFSP and the workload implications of current assessment arrangements for teachers and school leaders. The Union continues to engage positively with the Government on future arrangements for the curriculum and assessment in the early years. However, it will be essential to ensure that its reforms to the ELGs do not undermine the ability of settings to establish meaningful and engaging learning offers that meet young children’s language development and other learning needs in ways that are not driven by restrictive assessment imperatives.

The importance of support for families and the integration of provision in enhancing life chances

29.   The relationship between poverty in the early years of life and impaired wellbeing and future life chances is well established.[15] It is for this reason that the NASUWT remains profoundly concerned by the implications of the Government’s social and economic policy agenda on rates of child poverty.

30.   The Committee will be aware that after declining significantly in the period until 2010, levels of child poverty have increased dramatically.[16] Currently, 4.1 million children live in poverty, with the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) predicting that, on the basis of current Government policy, this figure will rise to 5 million by 2022.[17]

31.         The NASUWT notes that Government continues to assert that the introduction of Universal Credit will create ‘greater fairness in the welfare system and…help more families move out of poverty by making work pay.’[18] The Union must make clear at the outset that it does not share this view. As the NASUWT's evidence to the Government on its most recent Child Poverty Strategy stressed, ongoing changes to the tax and benefits system, including the introduction of Universal Credit, will hinder, not support, efforts to move more children and young people out of poverty.[19]

32.         Recent research undertaken by the IFS serves to emphasise these concerns. This research confirms that the introduction of Universal Credit will impact adversely on some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people in the UK, particularly those in households that include working lone parents, hold assets or have sources of unearned income, or that include adult couples who are both in low-paid work.[20]

33.         In light of the well-established, profoundly negative implications of poverty and material disadvantage on children's wellbeing and their future life chances, the NASUWT restates its call on the Government to adopt a revised approach to its economic, social and benefits policies that will exert sustained downward pressure on levels of child poverty. The Union remains clear that this revised approach must include steps to reform and redesign Universal Credit so that it contributes to, rather than undermines, work to tackle the causes and consequences of the material deprivation experienced currently by one in four children in the UK.[21] Policy should also be further developed to assist settings in ‘poverty proofing’ their practice and provision so that children do not face barriers to accessing learning based on their families’ socioeconomic circumstances.

34.         While the implications of poverty on young children’s future life chances are clear, it is equally well-established that the complex nature of the barriers to social mobility faced by many children and young people requires the development of effective multi-agency and multi-disciplinary policy approaches.

35.         However, the current direction of Government policy on collaboration between services for children and young people is placing their ability to contribute effectively to the promotion of social mobility at significant risk.

36.         In particular, the abolition of the requirement on critical services for children, including schools, to collaborate with local authority-led Children's Trusts has served to fragment and undermine the ability of these services to ensure that their activities maintain an active focus on the needs of disadvantaged children, young people and their families. The lack of local service co-ordination that the disestablishment of Children's Trusts has generated will serve to undermine the demonstrable progress they secured previously in meeting the needs of children who may otherwise have limited life chances.

37.         The ongoing and significant reductions in funding for children’s services also place at risk their ability to meet the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable young children. As a result of the pressures on under-resourced children’s services to narrow the scope of their activities to address budget constraints, the integrated working central to tackling child poverty and supporting enhanced social mobility at local level has been placed at genuine risk.

38.         On the undermining of work to tackle child poverty related to the deterioration of multi-agency frameworks since 2010, the NASUWT notes the findings of the Independent Review of Early Intervention commissioned by Ministers on the contribution that effective early intervention strategies can make to address the impact of poverty on levels of social mobility. 

39.         It is particularly important to note that the Review placed great stress on the importance of multi-agency working in effective approaches to early intervention.  It is clear that many of the examples of effective multi-agency working identified by the Review involved local agencies and practitioners operating within the context of the collaborative frameworks established before changes in policy implemented since May 2010.

40.         The NASUWT notes that recent policy announcements have recognised the importance of multi-agency working in, for example, the areas of safeguarding and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. However, without more meaningful action to establish common frameworks in all areas to facilitate and secure multi-agency working, this important dimension of effective service delivery will continue to be impeded significantly.

May 2018